Dushanbe

The capital of Tajikistan (Stalinabad until 1961) is situated in the center of the Gissar Valley, 812 meters above sea lavel, on the junction of the Varzob and Luchob Rivers who meet as the Dushanbinka right beneath the bridge on Ismail Samani Avenue. The snow-capped Gissar mountain rage rises to the north and east of the city, and on the south it is bounded by the Kafirnigan River.

It is a young city (80 years old). And cannot compare with such ancient Central Asian towns as Samarkand and Bukhara in age, history or architectural monuments. The “real age” of the city is a subject of scientific dispute. Numerous finds of archaeologists, ethnographers and historians, which were made last year (copper wedge – shaped axe, elegant, beautiful earring made of gold and silver alloy, a bronze, gilded fragment of the harness in the center of which there is a relief picture of Dionysus’ head – a Greek God, treasure of Sassanian dynasty silver coins), proves that people inhabited this place more than 2,000 years ago and attests to the high level of culture in handicraft and town planning in ancient Dushanbe.

We first heard mention of Dushanbe in 1676. At the time it was a small, poor village on the crossroads of caravan routes connecting the Gissar Valley with Bukhara and Samarkand, the Pamirs and Afghanistan. The tajik word “dushanbe” means Monday. The weekly bazaar was held in the village on Mondays, and that was what the place came to be called.

At the beginning of the century, Dushanbe was a group of adjacent settlements – the kishlaks of Dushanbe, Sariosio and Samokhmansur with one hundred clay-houses. Water was brought from the river in wineskins. There was just one paraffin street lamp for the whole of Dushanbe, which shed its faint light over the bazaar square.
The year 1929 marks the beginning of Dushanbe’s rapid development as the principle town in Tajikistan. In this year the town covered an area of five hectares. There were two bus lines in the town. A factor of paramount importance was the construction of the Termez-Dushanbe railway, for until then all goods, even building materials, had to be brought here by camel.

In this year, Dushanbe was made capital of the new Soviet Tajik Republic and renamed Stalinabad – a name it bore until the historical reinvention of the Khrushchev era.
The region was developed as a cotton and silk processing center and tens of thousand of people were relocated here, turning the rural village into a large, urban administrative and industrial center.

Dushanbe has lots of nice examples of pastel-colored Soviet-era buildings, with their typical mixture of Oriental and Socialist architecture (for example the Majlisi Oli or Parliament building, Firdousi library, Lakhuti theater, Ministry of the culture building).

It is sprawling with modern buildings these days in search of new identity for Tajik nation. Tajiks are Persian ethnic group which may have settled as long ago as the migration of later Aryans which dates back to 1000BC. The ethnic interest of Tajiks has great diversity as many smaller ethnic groups could be located living in Tajikistan. The population of Tajik ethnic group the speakers of Tajik language
(often described as Dari) is the biggest. Apart from Tajiks there is great presence of Uzbek Turkic speakers along with border regions with Uzbekistan.

The most interesting groups are located in the high mountainous region in the south which are classified as various Pamiri groups often some of them claim to be remnants of the last legions of the Greek armies in this region. Well this seems somewhat over
associating with the Greeks though we can safely say that they are various ethnic groups who once migrated from Caucasus region, the Aryans or relatives of the Aryan migratory tribes. Then in the higher mountains we also find Kyrgyz another Turkic speaking people
who are known as great nomads in the region.
Of all interest we have a small segment (4-5000 left) are the Sogdian speakers who live in Zarafshan valley still keeping their language. These might have been the remnants of local population which took refuge in the high mountains during punitive expedition
of Alexander the Great in 326 BC when their local leader Spitamenes was killed. This expedition concluded with the founding of Alexandria Eschate (Khujand)

Tajikistan is more than 90% mountainous territory with high peaks and glaciers which make the country inaccessible for long time in our histories. Now we have the chance of visiting these up till now closed areas. Tajikistan in ancient times was an important
part of Sogdiana Kingdom spread over to Samarkand and to the south river Oxus making the boundaries with ancient Bactria. These countries had many titular rulers in their selective regions who formed a federation among themselves until the regions were exposed to the modern ‘The Great Game’ as two big empires Russian Empire and British Indian Empire trying to wrestled the regions which were like no one’s territories.
This game continued till 1890s when two great powers demarcated their zones. Later Tajikistan along with other parts of Central Asia were amalgamated into Soviet Union which lasted until 1990 there by giving rise to new countries